South Korea's fertility and birth rates rose in 2024, the first increase after years of decline, according to data released today by the state statistics agency.
In 2024, the fertility rate was 0.75 children per woman in South Korea, an increase of 0.03 points from the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.
That rate has been declining for nearly a decade, but it is still far from the 2.1 needed to keep South Korea's population at current levels.
The number of newborns in South Korea in 2024 totaled 238,300, after reaching the lowest level in 2023 since the first statistics in this context were compiled in 1970.
"The number of births in 2024 was 238,300, an increase of 8,300 (3.6%) from the previous year," South Korea's state statistics agency said in a report.
In 2024, the crude birth rate, that is, the number of newborns per thousand inhabitants, was 4.7, compared to 4.5 in 2023, according to the same source.
South Korea's fertility rate is the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Also known as the fertility rate, this is an estimate of the average number of children a woman will have by the end of her reproductive years.
Seoul has spent large sums of money to encourage births, through subsidies, childcare services and help with fertility treatments.
According to estimates made in a report released in July by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the semi-autonomous Chinese region of Macau would have had the lowest fertility rate in the world in 2024: 0.68 births per woman.
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